1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to education, and more particularly to educational apparatus that helps children learn arithmetic related concepts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various equipment has been developed to aid young children learn elementary concepts of numbers, counting, and arithmetic. An example of educational aids are the familiar flash cards. Cards bearing problems to be solved are displayed by a teacher or parent. The student gives her answer to the person displaying the cards, who affirms or corrects the answer. While flash cards have been widely used, they nevertheless have the disadvantage of normally requiring a second person to be present to display the cards to the student. Further, learning by flash cards is dull and unimaginative, and consequently their use is made more pleasant if the student does not have to use them by herself to learn the desired concepts.
Educational aids do exist that can be used alone by a student. However, the existing teaching aids are handicapped by certain other disadvantages that prevent them from being entirely successful or readily acceptable by children and their teachers. The major disadvantage of most of the prior teaching aids is that they present no challenge to the student because the answers are automatically given along with the corresponding problem. For example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,728,584 and 3,289,324; British Pat. No. 161,237; and French Pat. No. 861,369 the components of the respective devices are arranged such that both the problems and the corresponding answers are displayed simultaneously. Therefore, the student need not exercise any thinking ability to obtain the correct answers to the problems.
The educational toy of U.S. Pat. No. 3,011,270 does not include any problem at all. Rather, the toy merely relates a particular numeral to its written form and to the corresponding number of objects.
Another deficiency of the prior teaching devices is that the problems and answers are not arranged in the normal and continuous manner of an arithmetic equation, e.g., a horizontal equation as "2+3=5". In the device of U.S. Pat. No. 3,136,074, for example, the answers to the vertically arranged problems are not vertically under the problems, but are separated from the problem. In other devices, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 1,662,503, the functions to be performed are either omitted or are presented in multiple and hence confusing form.
Thus, a need exists for a teaching aid that presents a proper and accurate arithmetic equation and that challenges the student to think and choose the correct answer.